Undocumented Soldiers (aka illegal aliens) infiltrate the US MilitaryIs the United States importing and training it's own insurgency of Aztlan warriors?

I have listened recently to open border amnesty advocates lionize immigrants that are serving in the military today. Some have given their life for America recently in Iraq and Afghanistan. All did so voluntarily. Always eager to prove just how good illegal aliens really are for America, I doubt they have bothered to check their immigration status. It is reasonable to assume they are unable to differentiate between legal and illegal immigrants. The amnesty proponents use this example as a justification for all the illegal aliens in America today. I'm not sure exactly what logic they are applying to that standard. Out of the 30+ million illegal aliens in America today only a small percentage have served in the military. Some have served honorably but many have not. Americans of Mexican heritage have a proud tradition of serving in the military. When I was active in the Marines I met many. But today's generation of illegal alien gangbangers is another story. I assumed that all immigrants serving in the military today would be here legally and have a legal green card status. I found that assumption was incorrect - silly me. In fact, the number of undocumented soldiers (illegal aliens) serving on active duty is astounding.

An excellent article found in an Latino publication titled, Gang Members Get Trained in the Army, addresses the problem of this younger generation of gangbangers, many who are illegal aliens entering military service.

LOS ANGELES – While hundreds of Mexican soldiers are deserting the army to join drug trafficking gangs, California is facing the opposite problem: A growing number of gang members here have infiltrated the U.S. Armed Forces in order to receive military training.

"Many older gang members are taking care of their newer members so that they maintain a clean criminal record and thus can have unrestricted access to the Army or guns," says an anti-gang official. "We have noticed that in common crimes, gang members are forced to give the name of another member of the group that already has a record so that he gets written up and helps the others to remain clean."

The infiltration of gang members into the Armed Forces must be taken seriously because it represents an important risk for local and national security, says the former DEA agent.

The numbers of undocumented soldiers serving on active duty in our military is simply astounding. The following is from an article titled A Stunning Disclosure on Illegals in the Military, written by Lt. Col. Matthew Dodd USMC for military.com. "The citizenship of 16,031 members of the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines is listed as 'unknown.' That's about one in 100 active-duty military members who might be U.S. citizens, legal immigrants - or just about anybody else."

And to make matters even worse they know some of these are in fact illegal aliens that enlisted using fraudulent documents. Since they do not know their status they could even be terrorists enlisting in our military. After the events of 9/11, I find this oversight astonishingly negligent.

"The case of an Army private from Mexico, who enlisted using a fake green card and then served in Iraq, suggests some of the unknowns could be illegal immigrants. The military has no set procedure for handling these cases. U.S. congressional leaders are looking into the matter ... Some experts see a security risk. Military officials say they've had few problems so far, but the 9/11 terrorist attacks raised concerns."

Many of the illegal aliens enlisting in our military are also members of some of the most dangerous gangs in America today. It is estimated that "Latino gangs" in particular are comprised of 60 to 70% illegal aliens. Some of the most violent criminal gangs like the Mexican Mafia, MS-13, and the Latin Kings now have members serving on active duty in our military. A recently unclassified FBI report entitled, Gang Activity in the U.S. Armed Forces Increasing studies the impact of gangs in the military. While the military acknowledges the problem they also seem to be trying to minimize up the extent of this infiltration. A CYA policy for career minded officers no doubt.

"The extent of gang presence in the armed services is often difficult to determine since many enlisted gang members conceal their gang affiliation and military authorities may not recognize gang affiliation or may be inclined not to report such incidences."

The following incidences from the same FBI report, detail some of the criminal activities that gang members were known to be involved in while on active duty.

In June 2006 an incarcerated US Army soldier and active gang member identified 60 to 70 gang-affiliated military personnel in his unit allegedly involved in the theft and sale of military equipment and weapons. The solider reported that many of the military personnel in charge of ammunition and grenade distribution are sergeants who are active gang members.

A May 2006 interview with a former Marine and Gangster Disciple member incarcerated in Colorado detailed how easily soldiers-many of whom were gang members-stole military weapons and equipment and used them on the streets of US cities or sold them to civilian gang members. (He also) discussed the advantages of military training and how it assists gang members in bank robberies, home invasions, and confrontations with police.

In December 2005 a National Guard soldier allegedly smuggled several machine guns back from Iraq and sold them to a gun dealer in Georgia, according to open-source information. [Jaz, aqui te hablan con eso de que no te explicas como las consiguen]

A 2006 news interview revealed that a Marine, who was a King Cobra member, stationed at MCAS Camp Pendleton, taught members of his gang how to engage in military-style ambushes and how to position themselves for tactical advantage. He further admitted that he joined the Marines "to learn how to shoot guns."

The most unnerving part of this story to me is that not only are illegal aliens serving in the military but some are also members of the most dangerous Latino gangs operating in America today. They enlist not to serve America and defend our liberties and earn citizenship, but to receive free military training and access to weapons. They return to their gangs to share their military training with other gang members. Many are involved not only in criminal activities while in the military but stealing military equipment for the gangs themselves. Gang leaders often groom and keep their younger members out of trouble so they won't have a rap sheet and can enlist easily. They also use fraudulent documents when necessary.

An article from the Chicago Tribune in 2006 called FBI Probes Military Gangs describes how younger members are groomed to enter the military.

Of particular concern are reports that the Folk Nation, consisting of more than a dozen gangs in the Chicago area, is placing young members in the military in an effort to gather information about weapons and tactics, said FBI Special Agent Andrea Simmons, who is based in El Paso, Texas.

"Our understanding is that they find members without a criminal history so that they can join, and once they get out, they will have a new set of skills that they can apply to criminal enterprises," Simmons said. "This could be a concern for any law enforcement agency that has to deal with gangs on a daily basis."

Tom Tancredo raised this point with General Petraeus during a recent Congressional hearing. Petraeus appeared to not be aware of the problem and growing threat. After 9/11 it is mind boggling that our military would not be more strict about it's enlistment policies. The Army and Navy appear to be the most lax but the US Marine Corps is not without it's own problems. Some recent news stories involved active duty Marines. In 2005 a Marine, Lance Corporal Andres Raya killed a cop and wounded three others in Ceres, California. His military training was used with deadly effect as he ambushed the officers. According to police, he was an active member of a Mexican gang, the Nortenos, which is affiliated with the Mexican Mafia. Just recently a Marine was shot by Mexican authorities while apparently running a roadblock while on leave in Mexico. That story continues to unravel. In 2007, Marine Cpl. Cesar Laurean who was stationed in North Carolina, raped and then killed his accuser and unborn child. He then fled to Mexico to hide from authorities. While the media does not identify them as such nevertheless this is what they are, illegal aliens serving in our military.

The problems of gangs, and I am speaking specifically of Latino gangs in this case, operating with impunity across America is in and of itself a major security threat to our society and our law enforcement officials. President Bush has done virtually nothing to protect Americans from this growing threat. In fact he has encouraged it. It is the direct result of an open border amnesty policy that is blind to the negative repercussions of allowing millions of illegal aliens to cross the border and enter our society. Amnesty proponents turn a blind eye and ignore the problems citing "Latino rights." They are criminally negligent in my opinion. The fact that illegal aliens (foreign nationals) are intentionally entering the military to receive military training that they then bring back to their gangs raises the level of threat that they represent to our society. They are more deadly and one needs to ask at what point do they become such a threat to our own national security that we will have to employ our own military against them? When we do, what will be the allegiance of those still serving. Will they become internal saboteurs?

A MILNET article titled Hispanic Gangs covers the subject of gangs thoroughly. It references many sources including the 2006 House Report titled, A Line in the Sand. There are well over 100,000 Latino Gang members operating in America and they are spreading. They bring a level of violence and crime into our society that is unprecedented. The most powerful of these, the Mexican Mafia is considered to have over 50,000 members allied with it. They call themselves "Aztlan warriors" and are dedicated to La Reconquista, the return of the southwest to Mexican control. Illegal aliens that are members of these gangs are currently receiving military training from us. These are known as blood in, blood out gangs, meaning that you cannot leave them alive. They will kill you if you try. At what point does the threat become a national security concern to our politicians and leaders? In my opinion the needed attention is long overdue. Now that there are this many illegal aliens in America, what are we going to do? The government has neither the political will or ability to round them up and sort out the good for bad ones. Hence my opinion that we should just deport them all.

"On March 15, 2005, the Department of Homeland Security finally made headlines by highlighting the national epidemic of illegal aliens found in Latino gangs. Unfortunately, the story isn't making a very big splash and the problem worsens. The case in question is the nationwide arrest and detainment of some 100 illegal aliens who are Mexican national members of the Mara Salvaturcha or MS-13, a gang that had its start as El Salvadorian prison inmates. Some of those arrested are repeat "returnees" -- illegals who have more than once been deported and then illegally crossed into the U.S. once again. 1 The case clearly spells out the ease in which illegals can routinely cross into the U.S. Moreover, it points out that if a deportee can recross easily, there is literally nothing to stop an international terrorist.

Combined with a clearly insane political correctness displayed by some cities in the U.S., the problem is nearing the point of pitting cities against the U.S. government. Make no mistake, this is the largest threat to you and your family in this country, outweighing every terrorist organization's threat, including Al-Qaeda, yet virtually nothing is being done about it. Even a very well laid out and logical plea from researcher Heather MacDonald in 2004 has not seemed to attract the attention of politicos, and the latest events culminate decades of suicidal behavior of our politicians. It is time to put an end to this insanity, and it appears our politicians are not hearing from their constituents on the subject, or worse, are ignoring the problem despite the will of the American People."

People that have really studied the problem of illegal immigration are very familiar with the concept of Aztlan and the La Reconquista movement. Will these military trained gang members (Aztlan warriors) become the backbone of a well trained military insurgency in our own country? Will they fight for Aztlan and the return of southwest United States to Mexico? Are we importing and arming revolutionary criminals that in 5 or 10 years will launch an armed insurgency similar to what we are now fighting in Iraq? Will they ally themselves with radical Muslim extremists for a united front against the United States of America. I am very concerned that this is exactly what will happen. I hope I'm wrong but I don't think it is prudent for America to ignore a developing problem like this.

On college campuses across America today there is a growing La Raza, MEChA, Mexica Movement that uses American tax dollars to subsidize the spreading of the subversive philosophies of the return to Aztlan. This ironically is financed by American tax payer dollars and Congressional grants, sponsored by foolish liberals like Barney Frank and Ted Kennedy. Using the smokescreen of federally funded Chicano studies programs, MEChA spreads it's racist subversive treason.

It has become very chic for amnesty proponents to laud immigrants that serve in the military. McCain in particular does it religiously. I thought that he was being dishonest by calling them immigrants. It turns out he was partially right. There are legal immigrants serving in our military. There are also illegal alien gang members and Aztlan warriors there as well. The fact that he does not see that as a problem is almost as disturbing as the fact that they are actually in the military. Well there they are - doing the jobs that Americans won't do anymore.

While one can appreciate the sacrifice that some immigrants may make - it is downright disturbing to see the deadly ramifications of allowing this many undocumented soldiers into our military. The good that may come from a few in no way offsets the negatives that are very apparent. The potential dangers are immense. Even if it is only to strengthen local gangs ability to endanger more citizens and local law enforcement. For that reason alone it should be stopped immediately. Apparently the Bush administration is asleep at the wheel as well or they are so distracted by affairs in Iraq that they have overlooked it. Perhaps in their haste to create a North American Union, a North American consciousness, they have overlooked the fact that they are importing an internal revolution.

Even our so called security expert, John McAmnesty, doesn't seem to care about the problems of allowing illegal aliens into our country alone, never mind the military. I'm concerned that the military training we give them will be turned against us in the not so distant future. In a few years when we are fighting an internal terrorist insurgency of illegal aliens for the control of our southwest states, I guess we can be proud of the fact that not only did we import a revolution but we also provide the necessary training and arms they needed as well. Is that the American dream? Equal opportunity for subversive revolutionaries? The self-deceived fools in America have not only imported the danger but they have financed and supported it's growth and lauded subversive foreign agents when they infiltrate our military as well.

So the next time you hear McCain, Bush, Obama or some other fool politician lauding immigrants that serve in the military, you should be aware of that you are listening to a complete idiot that doesn't have a clue. Illegal aliens are foreign nationals and many are a danger that we have allowed to become our domestic problem. Don't think for a minute that this weakness has escaped the attention of the communists in China and Cuba as well as radical Islamic extremists in Iran and Hezbollah. Our southern border is the Achilles heal of our national security and everybody knows it. When the Aztlan warriors of the Mexican Mafia and the EZLN and EPR communist revolutionaries join forces with AL-Qaeda terrorists and radical Islam, then Americans are really going to have their hands full. There will be blood running in the once peaceful streets of America as it is now in Mexico. We will be fighting for our own survival.

The article below shows the links of the drug cartels in Mexico that are currently wrecking havoc in both Mexico and America to Iran and Russian Mafia figures. The Chinese are just as involved in stirring the pot. There were 500 people killed this month alone with 6 Americans murdered in Mexico. The casualties are just starting to mount. You should keep in mind the the Los Zetas which have turned out to be such deadly killers for the drug cartels were trained by the US Army. We are now training a new generation of murderous gang members. The drug cartels work together with gangs like the Mexican Mafia to smuggle drugs and illegal aliens into America.

Mexican Drug Cartels And Terrorist Are Recruiting For More Fighters To Train As Soldiers

Does this mean that all illegal aliens in the military are gang members and potential murderers? That would be my conclusion. Call it racial profiling if you want, I call it being honest. They certainly do not belong in our military. It does show a pattern which almost everybody wants to ignore. Now why is that? Because the elite that really run America want open borders and unrestricted immigration. America's national security is not a high priority of Washington or Wall Street and apparently common sense is in short supply as well.

According to the 2006 House report A Line in the Sand, 1.2 million illegal aliens are apprehended at the border every year. Another 4-10 million make it through into America every year. You do the math and see what you get. By my count with those figures we have had at least 21 million illegal aliens enter America since 2001. The 12 million figure used by the open border amnesty gang is a lie. They are trying to hide the truth of the numbers from the American people. At what point are the American people going to say enough is enough and close the border. Do we really need another terrorist attack or a war to do that? I should hope not.

JESUS was an easy mark for the recruiter. He was a boy who fantasized that by joining the powerful, heroic U.S. Marines, he could help his own country fight drug lords. He gave the recruiter his address and phone number in Mexico, and the recruiter called him twice a week for the next two years until he had talked Jesus into convincing his parents to move to California.Advertiser Links

Fernando and Rose Suarez sold their home and their laundry business and immigrated with their children. Jesus enrolled at a high school known for academic achievement. But the recruiter wanted him to transfer to a school for problem teenagers, since its requirements for graduation were lower, and Jesus would be able to finish sooner. He was 17 1/2 when he graduated from that school, still too young to enlist on his own, so his father co-signed the enlistment form, as the military requires for underage recruits.

Three years later, at the age of 20, his body was torn apart in Iraq by an American-made fragmentation grenade during the first week of the invasion. In the Pentagon's official Iraq casualty database, his death is number 74. Now Jesus is in a cemetery, and his parents, who blame each other for his death, are painfully and bitterly divorced. While his mother bears her loss as a private tragedy, Fernando, who has dual Mexican and American citizenship, is working tirelessly to protect other young immigrants from being manipulated by U.S. military recruiters--the way he wishes he had protected his son. In the Iraq war, citizenship is being used as a recruiting tool aimed specifically at young immigrants, who are told that by enlisting they will be able to quickly get citizenship for themselves (sometimes true: it depends on what the Immigration and Customs Enforcement branch of the Department of Homeland Security finds) and their entire families (not true: each family member has to go through a separate application process). Nevertheless, with the political pressures on Latino families growing daily under this administration, many young Latinos are unable to resist the offer, which immigrants' rights activists see as blatant exploitation of a vulnerable population.

Barrio AnthroJesus, like the large majority of new military recruits, was signed up through the Delayed Entry Program (DEP), which operates in high schools, GED programs and home-schooling networks across the nation. The well-crafted messages on the DEP website have been in development ever since the draft ended and the all-volunteer military was initiated after Vietnam.

The DEP's persuasion campaigns originally targeted black teenagers with the message that military service equaled jobs that promised fair treatment regardless of race. Recruiters were able to easily meet their quotas until the early '80s, when enlistment rates of young African Americans began to decline and the rates for Latinos began to rise for reasons the military did not understand.

Over the next decade, the military commissioned a number of studies on the relationship between race and ethnicity and the "propensity to enlist." For example, the Youth Attitude Tracking Survey, conducted between 1975 and 1999 and published by the Defense Technical Information Center, found a correlation between the rising educational achievement of blacks and lower enlistment rates, and between the low educational achievement of Latinos (particularly if their first language was not English) and rising enlistment rates.

As Latinos became a more important source of recruits, the Pentagon hired market-research firms to design advertising campaigns that addressed the issues they care most about: family pride, education and citizenship. Today, the Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force recruitment campaigns focus largely on education and benefits to families. The Army's campaign, created by Cartel Impacto, a cutting-edge firm from San Antonio, Texas, uses the firm's proprietary "barrio anthropology" and grassroots "viral and guerrilla marketing" techniques to "go deep into the neighborhoods and barrios" in order to tell Latino families how the military can help them have the kind of life they want in America. "We address the core issues of why they left their country in the first place," says a Cartel Impacto spokeswoman, who did not want her name published. "You have to conduct your outreach carefully," she says, "using PTAs as an entry point," as well as "local Hispanic groups that the newly arrived would look to."

Recruit Friends!These marketing campaigns support the work of recruiters who, as mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act, must have free access to students in every one of the country's public schools. Recruiters operating in high schools try to get children as young as 14 to sign up for the military's DEP, which allows them to finish high school before going on active duty. Under the program, these young "men and women," as recruiters are trained to call them, are targeted, tested, gifted, video-gamed, recruitment-faired and career-counseled into enlisting before they turn 18. They are also paid $2,000 for every friend they talk into signing up with them and, until recently, were paid $50 for every name they brought in to a recruiter. In addition to cash, students who help recruiters to enlist their friends are promoted to a higher military rank, from Private E-1 to Private E-2, even before they are out of high school. The rewards are commensurate with the quality of the friends they recruit, as measured by their friends' ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery) scores. "You will get promoted to Private E-2," promises the DEP website, if your referrals lead to the enlistment of "one soldier who scores 50 or higher on the ASVAB" or "two soldiers who score 31–49." Private E-1s are paid $1,301 a month, while E-2s earn $1,458 per month. Further, getting a second high-scoring friend or two more low-scoring friends to enlist earns the student another promotion, to Private E-3, and kicks the entry pay up to $1,534 per month. Another way DEPs can earn extra money is to volunteer for hazardous duty. Students who sign up to be in a combat unit or dismantle explosives or handle toxic chemicals get an additional $150 per month on top of their basic pay. Volunteering for hazardous duty, however, is a relative concept. Since DEP recruits do not, by definition, have a college education, there are few other military occupations open to them, unless their ASVAB scores are high enough for them to qualify for advanced training. With the greatest need in this war being combat soldiers—so much so that even highly trained Air Force personnel are being sent to work with Army ground troop units—the chances of any DEP recruit getting out of combat duty and its attendant hazards are slim. The ASVAB is also administered only in English, and any job requiring even a security clearance cannot be held by a noncitizen. The implications of these conditions for young immigrants can be deadly. The Department of Defense's casualty database doesn't publicly break down the dead and injured by ethnic group, but a tally of Latino surnames found that between Jan. 10 and July 1, 2007, 20 percent of the 174 young people ages 18 to 21 who died were likely to have been Latino. With the intensification of DEP recruiting efforts in largely Latino high schools since the invasion began, this is no surprise.What's Legal?How many of these young Latino recruits are illegal immigrants? "Nobody knows," says Flavia Jimenez, an immigration policy analyst at the National Council of La Raza. "But what we do know is that recruiters may not be up to speed on everybody's legal status. We also know that a significant number of [illegals] have died in Iraq."

The recruitment of illegal immigrants is particularly intense in Los Angeles, where 75 percent of high school students are Latino. "A lot of our students are undocumented," says Arlene Inouye, a teacher at Garfield High School in East Los Angeles, "and it's common knowledge that recruiters offer green cards." Inouye is the coordinator and founder of the Coalition Against Militarism in Our Schools, a counter-recruitment organization that educates teenagers about deceptive recruiting practices. "The practice is pretty widespread all over the nation," she says, "especially in California and Texas. The recruiters tell them, 'You'll be helping your family.'"

Inouye referred me to Salvador Garcia, a student whose father had been deported and who had been approached by a recruiter when he was a freshman at Garfield (he is now a senior). Garcia says the recruiter told him, "If you need papers, come and fight for us and we can get you some, and then you'll never have to mess with immigration."

When Garcia told the recruiter that he was born in this country, the recruiter responded, "Do you have anybody in your family that needs a green card, needs papers?" Salvador told him that his father, who had entered the country illegally from Mexico, had recently been deported. "If you join the military you can get your father back," the recruiter reportedly said. "It's not a problem. We can get him his papers, and nobody will ever bother him again." Salvador says he almost signed the enlistment form right then, but says he was stopped by the realization of "how it's all connected--the war and Mexico and immigration." He is now active in the counter-recruitment movement. Recruiters in other parts of the country are making the same promises.

Counter-recruitment activist Juan Torres, whose only son was killed in Afghanistan, works with a number of counter-recruitment groups, including Gold Star Families for Peace and Military Families Speak Out, but mostly he works on his own, speaking at churches and schools around the country. He estimates that in the past year, close to 200 students have told him that they have been offered green cards for enlisting, and he says he personally knows of "five or six illegal families who have kids without papers in Iraq."

Torres talked one teenage girl into changing her mind just as she was about to sign the enlistment papers. He says that the recruiter told her, "Now you're in trouble. You and your family, you will have to leave." Torres says he once asked a recruiter, the son of one of his friends, "How can you lie to the kids like that?" The recruiter told him, "Sorry, it's my job, and I don't want to go back to Iraq." Despite the mounting evidence of these recruitment practices, the Pentagon denies that illegal immigrants are in the military. "If there are any," says Pentagon spokesman Joseph Burlas, "then they have fraudulently enlisted, and when they're caught, they are discharged."

That is what happened to Army Pvt. Juan Escalante, whose illegal status was discovered while he was serving in Iraq. He was discharged and shipped home, and ICE began deportation proceedings against him and his parents, who had smuggled him into the United States from Mexico when he was 4 years old.

However, Escalante's unit commander wrote a letter on his behalf, saying he had served with distinction, so ICE reversed its decision and accepted his citizenship application. The deportation case against his parents, who also have two U.S.-born children, is still pending.

Another illegal immigrant serving in Iraq, Jose Gutierrez, was not so lucky. He was one of the first members of the U.S. armed forces to die during the invasion. Gutierrez had made his way to this country from Guatemala in 1996, at the age of 15, to escape the violence perpetrated by the death squads, only to be killed in Iraq by friendly fire.

When the Pentagon announced his death, it came in the form of a carefully managed PR campaign that included a posthumous award of citizenship for Gutierrez, presumably to show that if an illegal immigrant manages to enlist and make it to Iraq, he will be rewarded.

However, Gutierrez remains the only illegal alien on the U.S. casualty rolls whose real place of birth is listed, while others who die are reported to be from Boston or Los Angeles or wherever a recruiter finds them. In New York City, according to counter-recruitment activist Melida Arredondo, whose young stepson was killed in Iraq, DEP recruiters instruct illegal immigrants to write "New York City" as their "home of record address" on the enlistment form, and to write "pending" for their Social Security Number.

Noncitizen SoldiersWhy is all of this happening, when the enlistment and expedited naturalization of illegal immigrants serving in the armed forces is specifically authorized in U.S. law? An executive order signed by President Bush on July 3, 2002, provided for the "expedited naturalization for aliens and noncitizen nationals serving in an active-duty status in the Armed Forces of the United States during the period of the war against terrorists of global reach." Under this order, any noncitizen in the military can apply for expedited citizenship on his first day of active duty. Not only is this order still in effect, but it has been codified in the National Defense Authorization Act 2006. With the law so clear on this issue, the treatment of illegal immigrants in the military, both by the Pentagon and by ICE, is difficult to understand.

"Apparently," says Lt.-Col. Margaret Stock, a nationally known immigration attorney and professor of military law at West Point, "nobody at the Pentagon reviewed the [regulations] on immigrants when the war started." She adds, "If the Pentagon has any immigration attorneys, I haven't met them."

Stock speculates that if the Pentagon is aware of the law, it might be "afraid there would be a political backlash" if the use of immigrant labor for the war were discussed openly. In a later email, she added, "And by the way, the Pentagon has always had the authority to recruit foreigners in wartime. ... The only thing that changed in January 2006 [when Bush signed the NDAA] was that Congress made it harder for the Pentagon to recruit foreigners who are not Lawful Permanent Residents. It used to be that anyone could join the military in wartime—even undocumented immigrants—but now the service secretaries have to find that an undocumented person's enlistment is 'in the vital interest' of the United States." To illustrate her point, Stock notes that a section of the 2006 Immigration and Nationalization Law locates the naturalization of immigrants serving in Iraq firmly in the tradition of naturalizations during wars dating back to World War I. During these wars, citizenship was granted solely on the basis of three years of honorable service or honorable discharge, whether or not the person ever lived in the United States.

"Recruiters trying to fill slots have historically pressed vulnerable people into service," says Dan Kesselbrenner, director of the National Immigration Project, a program of the National Lawyers Guild. "But for some people, it's the only way they are ever going to get citizenship."

What recruiters do not tell their targets, however, is that the military itself has no authority to grant citizenship. It forwards their citizenship applications to ICE, which will then scrutinize them and their entire families for up to a year. Recruiters also do not tell their targets that citizenship can be denied for the very same past criminal offenses that the military may have overlooked when admitting them—such as being in the country illegally. Nor do they tell recruits that citizenship can be denied for any kind of dishonorable behavior, which includes refusing to participate in combat.

As the war in Iraq drags on and recruiters step up their efforts to enlist high school students—even demanding the right to come into classrooms—teachers, parents and students themselves are doing what they can to slow the rate of enlistment of young immigrants who believe that military service is their path to citizenship. But as long as American citizenship remains a kind of salvation myth for the Latino community, military recruiters will be able to exploit their longing for it.

The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill, which failed to pass the Senate in June, proposed to give legal permanent residency to any "alien who has served in the uniformed services for at least two years and, if discharged, has received an honorable discharge."

In other words, illegal immigrants have been in the military all along, and the government was getting ready to admit it. Now, with the bill's defeat, they will be forced to remain hidden, and the sacrifices they have made for this country will continue to go unacknowledged.